Ethical eating

The Union of Concerned Scientists advises that avoiding eating beef may potentially help the environment,[5] because of the large amounts of water needed to produce beef, the pollution from fecal, ammonia, carbon dioxide and methane waste associated with raising cows, the physical damage from grazing, and the destruction of wildlife habitat and rainforests to produce land for grazing.

[3] Livestock production takes up the majority of agricultural land use, which ultimately results in the increase of methane and nitrous oxide emissions.

Year-round food and farm industries have become reliant on undocumented labor because they are unable to use the H-2 guest worker program.

The solution is investing into automation; new technologies have developed to the point where robots can now perform the tasks of an employee.

The conditions in the fields require repetition of the same movements-with little to no breaks, and the workers are oftentimes exposed to toxic chemicals used on the crops.

Although meat packing plant workers receive better pay, they risk their well-being on the job.

[20] This is due to the unnatural conditions for the chickens, such as confinement in battery cages, surgical beak procedures, forced molting, and genetic mutations that lead to health complications.

[21] Small-scale production of eggs, such as by backyard chicken raisers and small diversified farms raising pastured birds or milk-animals, are less ethically fraught but still create some issues for ethicists.

Much of the seafood in the United States is imported from overseas, which means that certain regulations are out of jurisdiction and no longer apply.

Ships and vessels depend on third parties for recruitment, meaning U.S. companies that get seafood from international locations are unable to keep track of supply chains.

Western demand for quinoa, a traditional food in Bolivia Peru and Ecuador, has become so high that producers are eating significantly less of the grain, preferring to sell it for import instead and sparking concerns about malnutrition.

[1] Fairtrade International, the certifying body for Fair Trade products, has been accused of "misleading consumers about its ability to monitor production practices"[7] and giving Fairtrade certification to at least one coffee association despite the fact they were "illegally growing some 20 per cent of its coffee in protected national forest land.